Greggs makes 'considerable progress' in Q4, Next lifts FY profit guidance

London pre-open

The FTSE 100 was being called to open 86.5 points lower ahead of the bell on Thursday after having closed 0.16% higher at 7,516.87 in the previous session.

Stocks to watch

Bakery chain Greggs said on Thursday that it had made "considerable progress" under "tough trading conditions" in the fourth quarter, putting the group in a "strong financial position" going into 2022.

Greggs said full-year sales were up 5.3% on the equivalent period in 2019 at £1.23bn, while in the fourth quarter two-year like-for-like sales in company-managed shops grew by 0.8%, with a strong performance in October being followed by more "challenging conditions" as consumers responded to precautionary messages relating to the Covid-19 omicron variant.

Separately, Greggs revealed that Roisin Currie had been selected to take over from Roger Whiteside as chief executive following the group's annual general meeting in May. Currie, who joined Greggs in 2010, currently holds the position of retail and property director, with responsibility for the firm's retail operations across the UK and its central support team.

UK clothing retailer Next lifted full-year profits guidance and announced a special dividend after Christmas sales exceeded expectations driven by people buying more formalwear. Next said full-price sales in the two months to December 25 were up 20% compared with pre-pandemic 2019 - £70m ahead of previous guidance. It increased annual pre-tax profit guidance by £22.0m to £822.0m.

Next also forecast a 7% rise in full-price sales for the year to January 2023 against the current fiscal year and a 4% increase in profit to at £860m, leading the board to declare a further special dividend of 160.0p per share to be paid at the end of January 2022 and said it intended to return to its pre-pandemic ordinary dividend cycle in the year ahead.

Newspaper round-up

Britain's economic recovery stalled before the arrival of the Omicron variant of Covid and the dampening effect of the government’s plan B restrictions on consumer spending in the Christmas shopping period, a wide-ranging company survey has found. Businesses blamed spiralling inflation and shortages of imported goods for a decline in sales in the fourth quarter, which meant that an expansion during the spring and summer ground to a halt. - Guardian

A British university is awarding degrees to trainees from a Chinese company accused of developing software that targets dissidents. The University of the West of England Bristol has launched an education programme for software engineers working at the research institute of the Chinese IT giant Neusoft. - Telegraph

Majestic Wine's best-selling region, New Zealand, is under threat from South Africa after a 12% jump in sales of wine from the Cape over the past six months. With difficult harvests hurting volumes from New Zealand, the wine merchant said that South African wines had "picked up the slack" and it expected the trend to continue beyond Christmas. It said that in December like-for-like sales of South African wines were up 41%. - The Times

Booming electric car sales were a bright spot in a tough car market last year amid disruption to global supply chains hitting manufacturers, according to fresh data. In its annual sales snapshot for 2021, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said carmakers sold 190,000 battery electric cars across the country last year, accounting for about 11.6% of total sales. - Guardian

NatWest is in talks with ministers over a rescue scheme for struggling energy companies as part of efforts to avoid a Treasury bailout. The taxpayer-owned bank has been drafted into discussions aimed at helping to ease financial burdens on the industry, as fears mount that consumer bills will soar to £2,000 when the price cap increases in April. - Telegraph

A marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has been valued at more than $13.0bn in a fundraising that highlights the surge of interest in unique digital items that can be traded online. OpenSea, a blockchain start-up, announced that it had secured the remarkable valuation on the private market barely four years after its founding. The company raised $300.0m in a funding round. - The Times

US close

Wall Street stocks closed in the red on Wednesday, with the Nasdaq turning in its worst performance in 11 months, after the latest Federal Reserve minutes suggested the central bank could move to shrink its balance sheet and raise rates faster than previously thought.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.07% at 36,407.11, the S&P 500 lost 1.94% to 4,700.58, and the Nasdaq Composite was 3.34% weaker at 15,100.17.

The Dow closed 392.54 points lower on after minutes from the latest Fed meeting revealed a more hawkish tone than previously communicated by the central bank, with some officials looking to raise interest rates faster and trim its $8.8trn balance sheet to combat spiralling costs of living.